ease; yet soon after his return he threw off his fine clothes, and the restraints of civilized life, as alike inconvenient and distasteful, and, in spite of all persuasions to the contrary, reverted to his old habits and his old haunts."[1]
The Australian native is kind to little children, affectionate and faithful to a chosen companion; he shows exceeding great respect to aged persons, and willingly ministers to their wauts; he has great love very often for a favorite wife; he exhibits, at times, great courage; he is hospitable, and he can be generous under very trying circumstances. But he is also cruel, treacherous, mean, and cowardly. At one time he shows himself superior to the whites—at another he is as cunning as a fox and as ferocious as a tiger. Some tribes and families seem almost destitute of the better qualities, and others display on nearly all occasions, honesty, truthfulness, courage, and generosity. The conduct of the natives of Victoria when Buckley was first discovered by them, and during the period of more than thirty years that he dwelt amongst them; the extraordinary kindness shown to the shipwrecked seaman Murrell, who lived with the wild blacks of Queensland for more than seventeen years; their behaviour to Thomas Pamphlet, when he was entirely at their mercy; the generous treatment of King by the blacks at Cooper's Creek; and the many instances of loyalty and integrity that are recorded of natives who have been well treated by settlers and explorers—are sufficient to satisfy the mind that all the higher instincts on which civilized men pride themselves are not absent in the bosom of the savage.
Though the natives at Cooper's Creek had no doubt been frightened by the explosion of the firearms, which the explorers discharged from time to time over their heads, to prevent them from carrying away the stores that were left, they were kind and compassionate to King. He says in his narrative:—"The same day one of the women, to whom I had given part of a crow, came and gave me a ball of nardoo, saying that she would give more only she had such a sore arm that she was unable to pound. She showed me a sore on her arm, and the thought struck me that I would boil some water in the billy, and wash her arm with a sponge. During the operation the whole tribe sat round, and were muttering one to another. Her husband sat down by her side, and she was crying all the time. After I had washed it, I touched it with some nitrate of silver, when she began to yell, and ran off crying out, Mokow! Mokow!—(Fire! Fire!)[2] From this time she and her husband used to give me a small quantity of nardoo both night and morning, and whenever the tribe were about going on a fishing excursion, he used to give me notice to go with them. They also used to assist me in making a gourley, or breakwind, whenever they shifted camp. I generally shot a crow or a hawk, and gave it to them in return for these little services. Every four or five days the tribe would surround me and ask whether I intended going up or down the creek; at last I made them understand that if they went up I should go up the creek, and if they went down I should also go down, and from this time they seemed to look upon me as one of themselves, and supplied me with fish and nardoo regularly."
